Wellington Grey writes: "I wanted to know if the slashdot crowd had any geeky ways that they hack their food. I've never really enjoyed eating, I've always viewed it as a means to the end of keeping myself alive. Are there any tips out there on how to cut down preparation time and still stay healthy? What the easiest, most minimal, yet nutritionally complete meals out there? Any ideas how long it will be until the food pill finally arrives?"

Wellington Grey writes: "I'm a physics teacher and have been wondering what ways it's possible to get students to participate in or donate to real science projects. I encourage my students to help out with things like Galaxy Zoo (which has just released a new version) and to get them to install BOINC on their personal computers. Do slashdotters out there have any other suggestions that would be appropriate for the 11-18 age range? Extra credit if you can think of a way that I can track their progress so that I can give them extra credit."

Wellington Grey writes: "According to RescueTime, the popular time tracking software, their users spent an average of 16 less minutes on Monday working than they otherwise would have. If you extended this number to the population as a whole, the lost productivity was $480,000,000."

Wellington Grey writes: "I'm a physics teacher and have been wondering what ways it's possible to get students to participate in or donate to real science projects. I encourage my students to help out with things like Galaxy Zoo (which has just released a new version) and to get them to install BOINC on their personal computers. Do slashdotters out there have any other suggestions that would be appropriate for the 11-18 age range? You get extra credit if you can think of a way that I can track their progress so that I can give them extra credit."

Wellington Grey writes: "It seems that H1-B holders are returning home for better opportunities. From the article:

As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends. "

Wellington Grey writes: "A Penn State study on homework find that more homework is not helpful:

"Instead of improving educational achievement in countries around the world, increases in homework may actually undercut teaching effectiveness," says David P. Baker. "Most teachers are not making efficient use of homework, they assign homework mostly as drill, to improve memorization of material either in math, science or the humanities."

My school has a policy that recommends about six hours of homework a night. A lot of this work seems like busy work that is not always beneficial to the students. What do you think is the appropriate amount of homework? More importantly, what would you do to improve the quality of homework? What kind of activities should the students be engaging in that aren't just math-drills?"

Wellington Grey writes: "My old inkjet printer died on me today, and after the number of stories we've had on Slashdot about the dirty tricks that printer companies pull — from misreporting ink levels to DRM and preventing refills — I wanted to know if slashdotters had any printers they can actually recommend. I don't do a lot of printing, perhaps 50 pages a week, but I don't want to support any companies that try and deceive their customers or sell products designed to fail."

Wellington Grey writes: "A recent article in the Wall Street Journal by a russian professor predicts the break up of the United States into four separate regions. It strikes me as politically tone deaf, with predictions such as Utah aligning with California, or Tennessee and the Carolinas joining New England. So I ask my dear, fellow Americans: if you were in charge of dividing the USA into more manageable sections, how would you do it?"

Wellington Grey writes: "Several years ago, my wife and I left the United States and went to live in London. Now after being there for five years, we are again looking to move. I would like to ask slashdot: what countries are the most geek-friendly places to live? This would include (obviously) access to the Internet, IP laws and how up-to-date the government is (i.e. Estonia). But were also concerned about less obviously geeky things like how the culture accepts people who are different from the mainstream. Any advice would be helpful. (Also, national healthcare and a pony would be nice.)"

Wellington Grey writes: "Daylight saving time is shortly upon us. The arguments about its possible benefits and drawbacks come up twice every year. Does it save energy or lives? Possibly but it does definitely cause a great deal of inconvenience. My ask slashdot question is this: what do you think would be the best possible system to replace DTS with? What is the best way for humans to deal with the inconsistent amount of light over the year and still foster coordination over disparate time zones?"

Wellington Grey writes: "Steve Jobs is normally a man who controls the spotlight, but at the most recent apple event announcing the new macs, he conspicuously gave a lot of stage time to the other top men of Apple. This has fueled a lot of rumors that the great man may be stepping down. There are few companies where the personality of the CEO is so infused in his products so the question is: what will apple be like without Steve Jobs?"

Wellington Grey writes: "France's Roman Catholic Church has called for embryos to be given a clear legal status following a court decision that let parents of miscarried fetuses enter them with a name in the official civil registry.
"The Church's position is that we must act as if the embryo were a person," he told the Rennes daily Ouest-France. "We protect endangered animals so we should protect people too.""

Anti-Americanism could be brushed off in the past because it was a small, if vocal, group espousing the idea. The problem is now that Anti-American sentiment abroad is no longer countered by a general population with positive feelings toward the US. Positive thoughts, even in America's allies, are now difficult to find.

Take, for example, Turkey. Ten years ago it was one of the most pro-American countries in the world, with Turkish support of the US at over 90%. Currently, support for the US is less than 9%.

From the show's summary: You want to know about anti-Americanism in the world? Here's the unhappy conclusion of a big-time panel of Republican and Democratic heavyweights, out yesterday: "America's reputation, standing, and influence are at all-time lows, and possibly sinking further."

Never in our history, says the report, have we, as a nation, been so poorly regarded in the world. And that has consequences. When America tries to lead, who follows? And if America stands too much alone, can it possibly prosper? Can it ever be safe?"

Wellington Grey writes: "From the article: A man in Sweden who was angry with his daughter's husband has been charged with libel for telling the FBI that the son-in-law had links to al-Qaeda, Swedish media reported on Friday.

The man, who admitted sending the email, said he did not think the US authorities would stupid enough to believe him.

The son-in-law was arrested upon landing in Florida. He was placed in handcuffs, interrogated and placed in a cell for 11 hours before being put on a flight back to Europe, the paper said.